Fear of Flying
by theladyingrey42
Summary: Without me, she flies. Together, it feels like we could soar. But how can I, when my feet remain tied to the ground? A two-shot written for Durameter for The Fandom Gives Back: Eclipse. AU/AH, ExB
1. Part 1: Ascent

This story was written for Durameter for the Fandom Gives Back: Eclipse. I can't thank her enough for her generosity, both for donating to such a great cause, and for letting me share this with all of you.

The prompt was the song "Bruised' by Jack's Mannequin - it's gorgeous, and I definitely recommend giving it a listen: **http:/ www[dot]youtube[dot]com/watch?v=xhr0iXFkSaU**

Thanks to antiaol for making my words pretty and to bmango for keeping me sane.

As always, Stephanie Meyer owns.

Oh, and just so there aren't too many screams of "WTF?" when you get to the bottom of the page, I'd like to remind you that this is a two-shot. The second half will post in a couple of days.

* * *

**Part 1: Ascent**

It begins with the high whine. A soft rumble leading to the firing of engines, stagnant motion and then the rushing of air. From the seat beneath me, there is impetus. Momentum.

I clutch the armrest and cross my ankles, my too-long legs never fitting and my eyes trained resolutely out the window at the world moving around me in reverse.

It's the anticipation, really. The hard rush of knowing what is about to happen and yet feeling in your toes that there is nothing you can do to control it. There are too many things out there, rushing by at a speed that man was never meant to travel at, and disaster is always hanging just a heartbeat away.

The second set of engines fires up and I feel the vibrations through my skull, my fists twisted so tightly they could tear right through the plastic and metal.

I'm strapped in. Ready to go.

But wishing I could stay.

There's a pause like an inhale, a breath I cannot release as the tunnel of sound and sight narrows. All at once we are rushing forward, my body hurtling toward a void it cannot possibly escape, my heart somewhere back on the ground.

And then I'm airborne.

Knowing that at any moment, I could fall.

…

I met her in my senior year of high school. Hunched over my lab table, an infinite sprawl of shapeless drawings stretching out across my notebook page, I scarcely even noticed her approach until she was so close she could have touched me.

And then she did.

Startled from my concentration, I whipped around, raking my fingers through my hair and adjusting my glasses, trying to speak.

But no words would come.

She was beautiful, of course. As she cleared her throat and self-consciously jerked her hand from my arm, I let my eyes dart across her face, taking in lovely brown eyes. Soft hair and skin. Her voice as she introduced herself was rich and warm, her smile disarming. Right away, I could sense her own shyness in the hint of a blush that lingered in her cheeks throughout our brief conversation.

While several awkward sentences were exchanged, the only part I would remember later would be her name.

Bella.

Beautiful.

All period long, even from a foot away, perched nervously on her own wooden lab stool, I could feel her presence. The warmth of her body and the hum of her breath, stirring the air that for so long had felt so stagnant as it surrounded me.

Before I knew it, the bell was ringing, the entire class having passed in a blur of trying so hard not to stare at her or to give away how soft her hand looked, glimpsed from the corner of my eye.

It wasn't as if I had never touched a girl, or never sat with one by my side. But even from that small interaction, from the quiet composure she held and the way her lip looked, held gently between her teeth, I could tell that _this_ girl was going to touch _me_.

Even if I never felt her hand on my skin again.

…

The plane's ascent seems to go on for an age, the earth moving farther away with every moment, while I am still being driven bodily into an abyss from which I fear I may never return.

In my mind, I can actually see the miles that pull her away from me, wondering if she is still there on the ground. If her eyes follow me through the sky or if they have remained cast down.

A ceiling of cloud envelops the plane and my world until all I can see is a numbing fog of white. Amidst the eddies and swirls, I imagine that I can pick out her face; in the roar of rushing air, I can hear her voice coming back to me. It is all choked sobs and careful restraint.

And then it is cold.

So cold.

"You have to go, Edward."

The sounds of the boarding area fall away in my memory, until it is only her. As it has ever been.

The sting of her rejection mixes with my own, the bruises of my making clear in her voice, and I can almost see them blooming on her heart. I wonder if it would change things if she had known how painfully they were rising on the fibers of my own as well, the treacherous deceit I have perpetrated staining every inch of me a purply black.

With my eyes closing against the fog of white outside the window, I remember the warmth of her forehead against my lips.

And the ache of walking away.

...

"Ugh," she groaned as she set her backpack down on the table beside mine. I grinned and pushed my hair out of my face, looking up over the rims of my glasses at her. Her face was flushed, those warm brown eyes so resolved.

In our months of working together as lab partners, I had come to recognize this expression of hers as one of frustrated resolve.

"What's wrong?" I asked, scooting over slightly. I gulped when it seemed like maybe, just maybe, she moved her stool so it was a little closer to the center of the table, too.

She huffed and crossed her arms before sitting, her shoulders hunching forward as she leaned her elbows on her desk. "Pre-calculus."

I chuckled slightly, but stopped as soon as I felt myself caught in her glare. Some snafu in her scheduling had incorrectly placed her in one of the toughest math classes, even though she hadn't had the prerequisites back at her old school. Ever since we had relaxed around each other enough to begin talking, she had been complaining about it.

A hundred times, I had tried to use it, too. For all that we were friends here in biology, we had never seen each other outside of school. The hints I was always dropping were either too subtle, or she was trying to be nice, letting me down easy by tiptoeing around my obvious crush on her. It was only my fear of the latter option that kept me from pursuing the first, or from tipping my hand any more steeply than I already had. Regardless, my fixation with her that I had felt from the very first moment I'd laid eyes on her had not abated; nor had my longing to touch her. If anything it had grown, and in dangerous ways. Now I wanted too to hold her. To kiss her.

To find out what it was like to be with another person, gasping and fumbling in the dark.

Feigning nonchalance and shifting my arousal surreptitiously beneath the table, I tried again. "My offer still stands if you ever need help."

Bella practically growled in frustration, her hands coming up to tear at her hair. "It's just so … so _humiliating_."

I shrugged. "There's nothing 'humiliating' about guidance screwing you over. Everybody needs help sometimes."

She shot me another evil look, the pointedness of it only just overshadowing the embarrassment creeping across her cheeks.

"_You_ never need help."

But that was where she was wrong.

Because where she was concerned, I would have accepted any sort of help she would have given me.

...

She flopped onto my bed with the same casual confidence she used each day to hoist herself onto the stool at our lab table. For a moment, all I could do was stare at the shape of her, spread out on the quilt I spent every night beneath, my eyes fixing on the sliver of skin at her waist as my hand curled around the doorknob, shutting us both inside that room.

Alone.

Propping herself up on her elbows, she turned her eyes from the books scattered all across the surface of my desk and then to me. With a smile, she asked, "So how are we going to do this thing?"

My untested body froze, my fantasies playing out before my eyes as she licked her lips and looked me up and down.

Only in my fantasies, she didn't smirk once her gaze had reached my zipper.

I jerked, checking that my hard-on wasn't visible through my pants before stepping behind my desk chair and tearing my fingers through my hair.

"You're working on Riemann sums, right?" I stammered. I instinctively pushed my glasses up my nose and moved for the textbook at the top of the pile, seeking safety in the familiar and the comfortable.

Neither of which described the twisted up feelings in my gut whenever I was close to Bella.

While it was true that I had touched a girl before, I had never had one in my room before, and definitely not one as pretty and alive and smart as Bella. Or one that I thought about every moment of every day.

My eyes darted away from the pages of numbers and variables at the sound of a disappointed sigh coming from my bed, turning just in time to watch Bella collapse onto her back, her hands coming to cover her face before she moved them to stare pointedly up at the ceiling. The look on her face was inexplicably lost, and I felt my stomach drop.

I buried my gaze back in my book as I fought for calm. Still, I couldn't hide the hurt from my voice, nor the bitterness. "If you don't want to do this, you don't have to."

She laughed hollowly. "No, Edward. That is so not the problem." Rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hands, she quietly groaned, "The problem is that I do."

...

The ascent into the sky is gradual for the most part. Unlike my descent into love.

Knocking my head against the plastic wall, my hand spread out across the surface of the glass, I realize that I will never get to speak that word to her again. _Love._ So close to tumbling forth from my lips all week, it is locked now forever in my chest.

There's a dark reminder, sitting heavily in the background of my mind, that this was inevitable. I remember my parents' disapproving looks as Bella became more and more of a fixture in my house, her name constantly on my lips the way I wished her kiss was. I remember the uncertainty we both held to for so long.

The imminent separation and all the reasons to keep a careful distance.

A distance which can no longer be overcome.

In one stomach-clenching movement, the plane lurches, a bump and a dive.

To me, it feels exactly the same as falling did.

...

Distracted as ever, I wouldn't have noticed anyone else approaching my lab table.

But Bella? Bella I noticed.

As if my entire being was somehow hardwired to hers, I could _feel_ it as she approached, light footsteps spanning the tile and then smiles and a soft scent of flowers . I could feel my own grin forming even as I pretended to ignore her, letting my pencil drift idly across the paper in a long, slow curl.

She sat down without a word, but I could feel the nervous energy vibrating off of her, her knee bouncing and something welling up, waiting to be unleashed. Finally, she slapped her hand on the surface of the table, just like I'd known she would. I just grinned harder when I managed not to flinch at the impact, my pencil barely deviating from the line.

"Yes?" I asked without looking up.

She huffed and then slapped my arm, and my heart did a little somersault at the contact. "Stop pretending not to notice me."

"Bella, I promise that I am more than aware of your presence," I said truthfully, my wry tone doing nothing to wipe the smile off of my lips.

"Well, good because you should be sucking it up while you can, seeing as I won't be gracing you with it for much longer."

My stomach plummeted, something painful twisting as my eyes immediately lifted to hers. It was only the sight of her wide, happy grin that helped me keep my cool, searching her features for her true meaning.

I put my pencil down as my eyes widened. "You got in."

She turned to me, our eyes connecting as she let any pretense of composure slip. "I did!" she squealed.

Later, I wouldn't even remember how it happened, but just as the tardy bell was ringing, I somehow found Bella in my arms, her whole body practically bouncing as I hugged her. My embrace spoke of celebration and happiness.

And fear.

So much fear.

"It's so perfect," she whispered as she began to let go. "You have Northwestern now and I have Dartmouth."

"Everything we wanted," I agreed, but even I could hear the misgiving in my tone.

It felt to me like I had nothing at all.

…

For me, that was the moment when everything changed. My mind told me that our impending departure for distant coasts was all the more reason to keep my feelings bottled up inside. But everything else in me screamed that there had to be a way to delay and to keep her near me.

It demanded that I never let her go.

Talk of college and the adventures that lay before us only increased from that point on, and I realized that my excitement waned a little more with every one of Bella's happy sighs. For years, college had been a beacon, giving me hope of a larger world beyond this small, sad town where I never really seemed to belong. It couldn't have come soon enough.

But now I was clinging to every moment with a desperation that frightened me.

It was a week or so later when Bella dragged me shopping with her, saying we needed to start getting things for our dorms. The scent of her filled my car and my mind as we drove to the nearest mall, my typical lead-foot slowing to try to prolong everything.

In the home store, she ran her hands over stacks of extra-long twin sheets, inspecting them all before pulling out a packaged set in a soft forest green and shoving it into my hands.

"These," she said with a knowing smirk. "They're perfect."

I glanced at the price tag and exhaled slowly, remembering just how agitated my father had been when I had asked him if it would be alright to charge some college supplies to his credit card. Money had never been an issue before, but suddenly he seemed tight-lipped and nervous, encouraging me to wait on as many expenses as I could for now.

"Maybe," I said as calmly as I could, sliding the package back into its place on the shelf.

"Whatever," Bella scoffed. "Just remember that the sheets are not things you should be skimping on. Wouldn't want to have to bring all those girls home to anything embarrassing."

I tried but couldn't choke back the laugh."What girls?"

She shook her head. "You just wait, Edward. Turn that charm on all those Chicago girls and they'll be powerless."

The idea was appalling and humorous all at once. I was enough of a misfit that I'd been on all of two dates, and both with girls I'd met at science competitions at other schools.

And the simple fact was that I didn't want 'all those girls.'

I wanted Bella. I _loved_ Bella.

And when I imagined a girl on my sheets, I imagined Bella and Bella alone.

...

The plane levels out, but inside I am in a free fall. Emerging from the bank of clouds, I can scarcely see for the brightness of the sun.

Just as, in my memory, I cannot see but for the brilliance of her smile.

And as always, the warmth of the sun is nothing to the warmth of her touch.

...

I tapped my pencil against my notebook, humming to myself and trying to make the numbers fall into place inside my head.

"So," she said, and I could hear the unspoken question in her breath. Rolling to my side, I looked up at her, sitting up against my headboard with her own book spread out across her lap. A single afternoon of tutoring had evolved into a series of study sessions in my room, and I had almost grown immune to the sight of her in my bed.

Almost.

"Yes?" I prodded, shifting slightly and staring longingly at the way she gripped her pen between her teeth.

Her fidgeting increased, her gaze moving back down to the page before her. "So, um, prom."

My heart panged at the very topic, and I found myself looking away as well. The day before, I'd seen her approached by one of the boys in our biology class just as I was leaving. When he'd mentioned prom, I'd nearly fallen into the doorframe, only impelled to continue moving forward by the stream of people trying to move past me. I'd seen the blush on her face.

But not her reply.

"What about it?" I managed. My voice was not nearly so casual as I had hoped it would be, issued as it was from between tightly clenched teeth.

"Um, well I was wondering if you were going."

I sighed and flopped over onto my back, wincing slightly at the sound of papers crumpling beneath me. In frustration, I pinched the bridge of my nose. Images of her asking if I wanted to share a limo with her and her date, or of her, bare-shouldered in a gown and dancing with someone else flashed painfully across my mind.

"I sincerely doubt it, Bella."

"Oh."

Silence reigned as I stared up at the ceiling.

She cleared her throat, and I winced. But then I heard her words.

"Would you like to go with me?"

...

I washed my hands and stared at myself in the mirror, cringing again at how my hair had rejected all of my efforts at styling it, my entire face looking strange and soft without the dark lines of my glasses. While the contacts I nominally despised were not physically uncomfortable, they were somehow emotionally so.

I liked having lenses to hide behind.

Stepping back out into the hall, I could already hear the deep thundering of the bass, and I cringed, tugging self-consciously at the lapels of my tux. Everything about the night so far had been just as awkward as I had expected, my attempts to socialize with Bella's friends proving tedious at best and mortifying at worst. We had never exactly defined our status at the event, but in the absence of any indication to the contrary, I assumed we were attending the prom as friends. And while my mind was more than used to that concept, it still represented a strange, untenable middle ground, where my hands couldn't quite decide how to touch her, wanting to lead her by her arm or with a light touch at the small of her back. More often than not, I just stuffed them back into my pockets.

After dinner, the awkwardness had only increased as Bella's face had fallen and her posture grown more distant. Finally, I had excused myself to use the men's room, needing a moment to collect myself and to let my frustrations out on an unsuspecting wall.

But the moment I re-entered the ballroom, it was all for naught.

My eyes zoomed in on Bella immediately, my breath ragged at the sight of her in the long blue gown, the pretty, pale skin of her neck and chest so exposed, the hair that I adored swept up so gracefully.

And she looked so sad.

My chest tightened with every step toward her, my eyes following hers to settle on one of the many couples rotating slowly on the dance floor. There was something burning in my throat, wondering if she was staring longingly at the boy or just at the obvious affection between the two dancers. And wondering if she could ever stare like that at me.

She didn't notice my approach until I was almost touching her, those glassy doe eyes turning up toward me and my heart crumbling, my body freezing in its path. I raked my hand across my forehead in distress and stared down at my shoes.

Bella's expression didn't soften at all, and if anything, my proximity seemed to make her face fall even more.

I swallowed hard at what seemed to be the final proof of what I had always known.

She didn't want me near her.

"If you want to, we can just go," I murmured as I shuffled my feet and backed away. The pain of separation hit me hard, but I gritted my teeth against it, knowing it had always been just a matter of time. If not now, it would have come in June with the end of school, and then even more finally when August took us far and away.

But that still didn't make it hurt any less right now.

Her voice was tiny when it finally reached my ears. "If that's what you want." I looked up to find her shoulders hunched, one delicate hand brushing against her cheeks.

I couldn't bring myself to nod. All I could do was stay still, even though everything inside me was telling me to either hold her or to run.

"What do you want?" I managed.

She laughed and rubbed just below her eyes again, not meeting my gaze as she murmured, "Isn't it obvious?"

"No."

"I want you to ask me to dance with you."

All at once, the pain I'd felt radiating through my chest dissolved into something bright and unnameable, a ghost of a smile appearing on my lips. Stepping into her, so close that I could smell the softness of her skin, I breathed the words I'd been too frightened to all evening.

"Dance with me."

The motions that brought us together were all a blur, but then she was finally there, inside my arms, her face pressed to my neck, damp and warm. And just like that we stayed, not caring how the music changed or what was happening around us. Unable to resist, I pressed my lips gently to her forehead and tightened my hold around her waist.

"Bella," I breathed. I wanted to ask her why she was so sad. Why she'd asked me to the prom and why she'd wanted me to ask her to dance.

Why she felt so perfect against my chest and why I couldn't seem to bring myself to pull away from her.

Only, when she lifted her head off my chest, the look on her face melted all my questions and all my fears away. I spoke her name once more, but then I felt the pressure of warm hands on my neck, her body rising in my arms.

And for one blissful moment, as our lips met, I didn't have any questions at all.

...

"How long?" she whispered, her body pressed against my chest in a veritable symphony of skin. In the weeks of kisses we'd shared since prom, we'd yet to shed all our clothes, but she'd recently begun to let me explore the soft swells of her breasts with loving hands and gentle lips and teeth. Her mouth made its way from my throat to my ear, breathing erotically and setting my body on fire.

"How long what?" I panted, pulling her closer, gripping her thighs through her jeans and opening them to wrap her legs around my hips. Pleasure I had never dreamed of shot through me as I closed my eyes.

"You know."

With her lips so close to mine that they brushed with every word, I whispered, "Since the very first moment I met you."

...

A quiet ding and the extinguishing of a light above my head signal our attainment of a stable altitude. My eyes are blurry and my head ringing as I swallow down bitterness and aspirin, fumbling through my bag for my iPod and headphones.

Even though I knew what I was heading into on this trip, I did not change my list of songs, and the ache only grows as, one by one, they pull me even deeper into memories of her mouth and her heart, her soft words enveloping me bodily through the music.

There's the song we first kissed to, there on a dance floor. The ones we listened to together, splitting a pair of earbuds on my bed, the door propped open after the change in our relationship and in the wake of my mother's pointed words.

The one that, less than twenty-four hours ago, we unleashed all our passion to for the very last time, not knowing then that we would never come together that way again.

And then, my eyes burning, I let my thumb drift slowly to the one I first kissed her goodbye to.

...

"Do you remember how happy I was?" she whispered, a sob catching in her throat. "When I told you I got in? I thought it was going to be so great, and now I don't even want to go."

I buried my face in her hair, not wanting her to see how close I was to crying, too. Clutching her closer, I tried to keep my voice steady, but it was still heavy with emotion and hoarse. "Of course you want to go."

She shook her head, sniffling and clutching at my shirt. "Not any more. It feels like I just found you."

A single droplet squeezed through as I clenched my eyes closed.

"I promise you'll never lose me."

...

The first time I said goodbye, it was at an airport terminal, her face so soft between my hands, her cheeks streaked with tears. Mine were flowing freely by that point, too, and I couldn't even bring myself to care that both sets of our parents could see. Feeling her hands shake as they clasped around my neck, I kissed at every single part of her face that I could, promising to write and email and visit and call.

"I'll miss you so much," she sobbed.

"Not nearly as much as I'll miss you."

When her flight was called for boarding, I just squeezed her tighter, only letting go when I felt my father's cold hand on my shoulder. The entire time, as she and her parents were walking toward the gate, I watched, feeling my whole body wanting to melt into the ground as the silhouette of her plane took off.

My mother was the one to touch me then, taking my hand and my sister's and leading us to the other end of the terminal and to our gate.

By the time I was buckled in, gripping the arms of the seat and wheezing against the anxiety of take-off, I could scarcely breathe for the miles I could already feel unraveling between Bella's life and my own.

In my ears, there was a dull whine. The firing of engines.

Before I knew it, we were airborne, hurtling forward into a new life that I'd not yet begun.

But all I could think was that the life I had known was over.

...

As my parents and I unpacked my things from the rental car, my little sister Alice stayed up in the dorm room, texting on her phone and prying through my suitcases when she thought I wasn't looking. It was as we were bringing the last of my supplies up the stairs that she turned to me, the photograph of me and Bella taken just after prom in her hand. In it, we were laughing and hugging, my lips pressed so tightly to her forehead and my eyes closed, still basking in the impossibility that had come to be.

The sight of it nearly took my breath away, and I could actually see all of the teasing jokes Alice had been planning to make slide off of her face as she handed it to me. Feeling like my insides might claw their way out of my chest, I bit back the painful sense of longing rising up in me.

And then, so carefully, I placed the photo beside my new bed.

And I tried to ignore the twisting in my heart when I realized the frame and the sheets shared the exact same shade of green.

...

I close my eyes but everything is painted there on the insides of the lids. In the darkness, I can't seem to escape two years of memories. Longing and absence. Blissful reunion and the perfection of her face and of her kiss.

With all I am, I try to sleep, but there is nothing to save me from the flashes that are too brilliant not to see. Curling in on myself and probably scaring the other passengers, I fight the tears and pray for numb.

But it hurts too much to escape.

And it's too beautiful to pull away from.

…

"I can't believe you're here," she whispered, her scent finally surrounding me again and my hands feeling full for the first time in a month. I could barely pull myself away from the heaven of her mouth for long enough to respond, but when I did it was all smiles and teary eyes.

"I couldn't stand it another minute," I murmured, leaning down to capture her lips again.

The first week of college, rather than a release, had been torture, passing by in lectures I tried my hardest to follow and long phone calls that lasted far too late into the night, Bella' voice wrapping around me and trying so hard to pull me from the depths of my loneliness. Worst of all, I could feel her unhappiness, too.

And I'd promised myself I would never hear that kind of sadness in her voice again.

After a weekend of too much beer and so much despondent rambling that my roommate had completely given up on me, the second week had been easier, but only because the hole of her absence had grown so large that the tissue around it was unfeeling. Scarred. The third and fourth weeks had passed much the same, right up until she had called me out of the blue, crying and despondent.

And then the three words I had been wanting to say to her for so long had come tumbling from her lips.

"I love you, Edward. And I miss you so much it hurts."

In a terrifying exhale, I had finally given voice to my own feelings, whispering them over and over and feeling the pain redouble as we'd hung up.

Five minutes later, I had been on my computer, searching for the first flight out of town that Friday. As much as I still hated flying, the trip to her door had been filled with the best possible anxiety, my heart healing just a little with every mile that fell away beneath me as I soared in my mind and through the sky.

And then she was there, her door opening beneath my hand and my breath catching until finally she was in my arms again.

And I was whole.

"I love you, Bella," I whispered. "I love you so much."

After a few more minutes of kissing and staring and more than a couple of hoots from people walking past, Bella invited me in, and it wasn't long before her roommate winked and said she'd be staying the night at her boyfriend's room.

And then it was just me and her.

We'd touched in so many ways in stolen moments, both at my parents' house and at hers. My body had come to know her lips and hands, my own fingers clutching at worn sheets as I'd learned what it was like to breathe her name and come, aching, inside her mouth.

But in that moment, there on a bed in a room that was really hers, days after confessing to being madly in love, it was clear that those touches would no longer be enough.

It seemed like we should be talking, catching up on all the moments we had missed, but all we'd had for four weeks had been bodiless voices. And now we were here.

In a silent agreement, she pulled me down to the mattress with her, my body hovering above her as our tongues and lips entwined, soft hands pulling at my clothes. I undressed her, too, pushing away the fabric that had always, at least to some extent, stood between us, until finally we were both bare, touching and stroking and whispering soft affirmations of love and pleasure.

When I asked her if she was sure, she nodded and slipped the condom on.

And when I slid inside her, shedding both of our innocence at once, it was like there had never been any distance between us at all.

...

There in a humming, buzzing world some thirty thousand feet in the air, I relive it all. The visits and the goodbyes, too many now to count. The summers when it felt like I was whole and the encroaching shades of August that reminded me she was mine to hold, but on some level, never to keep.

There are ominous moments, too. The ones that foretell our doom.

Her happiness and her success that throw my emptiness into even starker relief.

My father's increasing agitation over every one of the frustratingly few times I fly to visit her and his increasingly tight hold on the reigns of my spending, after so many years of not seeming to care. Worried phone calls from my mother and my sister that tell me things are getting worse at home instead of better.

And the call that brought everything crumbling down.

...

I didn't even check the screen before answering my phone. One of us called the other every night at right around this time, and I was as eager as ever to let myself get lost in her voice.

"Edward?"

The flirty hello I'd been about to breathe caught harshly in my throat at the deep inflection of the word.

My father never called unless something was wrong.

"Edward, we need to talk."

…

Once I'd learned that all my family's assets had been frozen, things spiraled out of control quickly. My mother's voice was on the phone all the time, telling me how terrified she was, and of the people who came in and out of her house on a revolving basis now. Of my father's protestations of his innocence, and also of her creeping doubt.

"Edward, baby, I … I don't know … I'm not sure how we're going to pay your tuition if this doesn't get cleared up."

Each time she would hang up, I would drop my head into my hands and stare at my phone, both begging it to ring and to remain silent, hoping for good news. Or for Bella.

Only, even talking to Bella was not as easy now. When first I heard about my family's trouble, I had planned to tell her, but she hadn't had time to talk, working frantically to finish a project; the next night I'd had an evening class of my own. By the time we finally connected, it was old news, and in and amongst her happy explanations of her day, I'd never found a moment to interject.

When my father was finally arrested, quietly brokering a plea in exchange for information on other business partners, I was too embarrassed to try to tell Bella what had happened to me.

To my family.

To my future.

And so my silence held.

...

"I'm scared, Edward." Alice's voice was tiny in the receiver. I'd finally called her after Mom had failed to respond to my messages for days. Shakily, my sister explained the hysteria our mother had fallen into when our father had accepted a ten year sentence, holing herself up in a their bedroom and refusing to come out.

"She won't eat. I don't think she sleeps. There are all these bills on the kitchen table and I don't know what to do with them."

I gulped and closed my eyes, remembering the words my father had spoken to me before his hearing date.

_"You're the man of the family now, Son."_

Gritting my teeth, I managed, "I'll be there just as soon as I can."

…

I found the house and everything in it in a shambles by the time I got there, but there was only so much I could do. Over a long weekend, I set as much to right as possible, draining my small savings I'd accumulated at my part-time job on campus to pay the most important bills and trying with all I was to coax my mother from her bedroom.

The house was the only thing that was protected from my father's malfeasance, and I was relieved to find it mostly paid off, but I still knew my mother and sister wouldn't be able to manage for long on their own, especially if Mom didn't recover soon.

With only a couple of months left of the school year, I resolved to see it through and then put my plans on hold for a while until I could see things put to rights back here at home.

"Don't worry, Ali," I whispered as I hugged her tightly before heading to the airport. "I'll be back soon. Somehow it will all be alright."

"For good, Edward? Will you come back for good?"

"For as long as you need me to."

…

I'd barely made it back to school before Bella was on the phone. I'd been intentionally vague about what was going on while I'd been home, but there was no hiding the resignation in my voice upon my return.

"Seriously Edward, you're scaring me. What's going on?"

The words bubbled up, but I'd failed to speak for so long that I didn't know how to tell her now. Especially now that so many of my hopes were disappearing.

My hopes for a future.

And I shuddered as I realized that my hopes for a future with _her_ were disappearing, too. My hopes for taking care of her. Of being able to live a life that would match with hers.

And so I felt the lie tumble out through numb, unsteady lips.

"I'm fine, Bella. I'm just tired."

Tired of responsibility.

Tired of lying.

…

The flight attendant moves through the cabin with smiles and words of greeting, none of which I want to hear. I find myself wishing it was my birthday already and that I could order a series of drinks meant to melt the pain born of my own silence and lies.

But I know it wouldn't do me any good.

When she passes my row I shake my head no and close my eyes again, flicking my thumb across the clickwheel to restart my playlist from the beginning.

And every song just makes me that much more despondent.

And that much more inclined to wish that I could have frozen time, staying forever in the week which came before.

That I'd never left.

…

"I'm so excited!" Bella squealed. In the background, I could hear the sounds of her moving around the dorm room I'd seen so little of these days, but which I still felt I knew by heart. "Just wait until you see this bathing suit my roommate made me buy." Her voice dropped. "You're not going to be able to keep your hands off me."

My body twitched and I stifled a moan.

"I never can."

Her smile is almost audible as she replied, "I know."

I stared at my own unpacked suitcase in the corner, wondering why I was dragging my heels. The tickets for our spring break trip had been purchased long before my family's troubles had come to a head, and after trying twice to secure a refund for them, I had given up and decided there was no harm in indulging in one last week of escapism.

One last chance to lose myself in Bella's arms before the truth became inescapable.

…

"Have you ever had sex on a beach?"

I turned away from the fire pit and toward Bella's reclined form, spread out in a bikini top and too-short shorts, wanting her again immediately. As I moved to hover over her, I ran my hand down her body toward her hip and kissed her neck.

"Well," I whispered huskily, "considering you're the only woman I've ever made love to, I really shouldn't have to answer that question."

I immediately began to push myself closer to her at the sound of her soft moan, but all too quickly we were interrupted by someone clearing his throat and a twittering giggle from somewhere to my right. Exhaling hard, I pulled away, watching Bella's blush spread halfway down her chest and feeling my body respond all the more at the sight.

"C'mon," she murmured as she moved to stand. I rose as steadily as I could, considering I had a few more beers than was typical flowing through my system, and offered her my hand. She took it and joined me, throwing an arm around my waist and using the other to wave unashamedly at her friends. I smiled shyly and let her lead me down the beach, away from the light of the fire and then farther across the sand until the sound of voices and a softly strummed guitar gave way to the gentle lapping of the waves.

Our first day at the cabin was drawing to a close, and I was relieved to have her to myself again. The moment we'd stepped inside, Bella and I had excused ourselves to 'unpack and freshen up,' but really it had been born of the sheer need to reacquaint our bodies. We'd barely gotten the door closed before we were tearing each other's clothes off, my body hard and pulsing inside of hers within minutes of stumbling half naked to the bed.

Once we'd reemerged, the day had passed in alternating slices of heaven and hell. It had been such a relief to be close to her, touching her skin and kissing her lips, so many of my other problems fading. But trying to keep up the pretense of lightheartedness had proven more difficult than expected, especially when surrounded by her friends. Rich, beautiful and Ivy League, their casual happiness had made my own situation all the more painfully shameful, and I found myself holding my silence much more tightly than I had hoped to have to.

I was holding it still as Bella and I meandered further out into the night, her hand in mine and the stars so close that it felt like I could touch them.

But she and they were all still so far away.

We passed a dune eventually, and she turned to look back the way we had come before shoving me playfully and wrestling me to the ground.

And it was so easy to forget everything when she pushed her shorts down, my own hands fumbling with my belt, pulling myself out and pushing into her as if she was my only connection to the earth. I found myself savoring every motion, every sensation moving through my body as I bit my teeth against the instinct to tell her how much I loved and needed her.

Fearing that the moment I opened my mouth, every single thing I had been holding onto would come tumbling out.

…

Morning was almost gone by the time she began to wake, her face burying itself against the nakedness of my chest. We'd finally tumbled into bed after sneaking back into the cabin past her friends, showering the sand out of the nooks and crannies of our bodies while trying to stay quiet, but laughing and loving the entire time anyway.

"Hey," she finally mumbled, pressing up on my chest until she could rise up enough to kiss me. My erection flexed against her naked skin, but it was of no real concern to me; after making love twice yesterday, I was more interested now in simply holding her.

In soft touches and quiet words, we greeted each other and the day, each growing more animated as the fog of sleep began to fade. We'd made so little time for actual words the previous day, and she was eager and talkative, filling me in on so many of the things that I had missed.

The things that I was always missing.

My mind was drifting slightly, paying more attention to the feel of her skin beneath my fingertips than to the content of her story, when I was brought back to her by a sudden rise in her inflection.

"Oh, my God, Edward, I can't believe I almost forgot! I didn't tell you?"

"Didn't tell me what?" I asked, smiling, my own moodiness yielding to the excitement and warmth she seemed to exude.

Sitting up straighter at my side, Bella was a vision of liveliness and happiness, and even though I was listening intently now, I still couldn't help but remark to myself on how much she had grown. In the past two years she had come into her own, shedding the lingering traces of childish shyness and evolving into the most amazing creature. Confident and smart. Beautiful and sure.

I gulped against the knowledge that all of the changes had come about in a world that was so far from my own.

And that her world was drifting further from mine still.

"You'll never believe. I got offered the most amazing internship for this summer, on a dig in Costa Rica. I'm not going to take it of course, but it's just so cool to have gotten the offer."

My face scrunched up. "Not take it?"

"No silly. I want to go home. If I don't, when will I ever see you?"

"Bella..." I began, wanting to warn her.

Not wanting to hold her back.

And not wanting her to know.

Her eyes widened. "Unless you could go, too? I mean, it's not exactly the same, but biology and anthropology are sort of related, right?"

"No, not really." I chuckled as I wound a strand of her hair around my fingers, thinking how I couldn't afford tuition for next semester, much less an internship in Central America. But my laughter was cut off by the way Bella's face instantly fell.

"Well, never mind," she said dismissively. Snuggling back into me, she tried to seem content. Happy even at the prospect of a summer with me.

But neither of us could really pretend to be.

...

"You're a lucky bastard, you know." The wry, bitter voice came from behind me, and I glanced over my shoulder to find one of Bella's friends leaning casually against the counter. Uncertain what he could want from me, I finished rooting through the fridge before turning to face him.

He was one of her friends that I had met before, but only in passing, and she had rarely really spoken of him. I sized him up anew, appreciating with a gulp that he was most certainly a rival. Rich and handsome, cocky and proud, he raised all the hairs on the back of my neck that told me viscerally to defend myself.

Instead, I simply turned and crossed my arms.

"Excuse me?"

"I mean, I always figured she'd move on before freshman year was over. Relationships from high school never last. Someone has to grow out of it. And Bella, man … that is one _quality_ girl. Way too classy to still be dating someone from Bumblefuck, or wherever the hell you guys are from."

My hands clenched into fists and I inhaled deeply, fighting back the instinct to respond the way I wanted to. "Well," I managed, "I guess I'm not just any guy from Bumblefuck, then."

He sized me up in his own time, stepping too close to me for comfort, and I could feel my nose flare and my breathing race. "Yeah. Yeah, you are. And Bella … Bella's going places." A little bit of spittle hit my face as he continued, "And someday she's going to realize that those places are places you can't go."

"Mike? Edward? What's going on?"

Both our heads whipped around to see Bella standing uncertainly on the threshold, her hair wet from the shower and questions rising in her eyes.

Mike stepped away, but I followed every movement as he approached the girl I loved, throwing his arm casually around her waist.

"Nothing, B," he said, with a twinkle in his eyes. "Just setting Eddie straight on a couple of things."

…

The last night before we were to leave, Bella and I opted to stay in, letting the others head into town in search of a decent club. We were more interested in making the most of what little time we had together, face to face.

Lying on the couch, I let my hands move over her body, feeling compelled for some reason to memorize it the best I could, storing away every detail. As if I already knew that things, as they were, could not stand.

All week long, it had grown more and more apparent to me that I didn't fit in her life anymore. She laughed easily and freely, and like her friends, she had the most amazing future, far away from the quiet town we had both escaped from.

And which, now, I was sinking back into. Clawing at sand.

"It's hard to believe we're almost halfway done," Bella mused, her head in my lap and her hand studying mine.

"Done?"

She kissed my palm and touched my face. "Well, as much as I love college, I certainly don't plan to take more than four years there. Do you?"

It was a joke.

An obviously dismissible statement.

It made my skin go cold.

Chuckling slightly, I tried to simply sit there and stroke her hair, but I could feel the bile rising higher and higher in my throat, a canyon opening up between my world and hers.

Like I was touching her across a chasm.

Because she was going places. And I was standing still.

"Edward?" I refocused back on her face, realizing as she began to sit up that she had been trying to catch my attention for some time now.

"Hmm?"

"Edward," she said warily. She was right beside me then, one knee tucked under her body and her hands on either side of my face. "Tell me the truth, baby. What's going on with you?"

My stomach clenched and my throat grew dry, my head shaking instinctively.

But it was far from the only part of me that was trembling.

"I don't – I'm fine."

"No. No, you're not." Her voice was surprisingly sharp, and before I knew what was happening, she was on her feet and moving to the other side of the room from me. Suddenly, it was if all our little silent moments, all the spaces in between our words began to expand, taking up all the air in the room, and Bella was far from oblivious.

Bella knew _everything_.

Everything except what mattered.

"It happens all the time now, Edward! You're in your head and you won't talk to me. You haven't been to see me in ages, and it's been so hard to get a hold of you. I hoped this week would make everything better, but it's more of the same. It's like … it's like you're either fucking me or pulling away from me and I don't know what you want anymore."

I rose to my own feet, my mouth agape and my mind reeling.

But she wasn't done.

"I need to know if this is going anywhere. Are you even here with me anymore?"

I didn't even know where here was.

Swallowing numbly, I forced out a response, but I knew it wasn't the right one.

"What do you want from me, Bella?" Inside I was screaming, begging her to want me even though I wasn't a free man anymore. Even though I might never be half of what she was.

Even if I couldn't follow.

"I don't know, Edward." Her voice broke and took my heart with it. "I don't even know."

And I could see two choices there in the space between our bodies.

I could throw myself at her. Hold her against me and tell her everything I'd kept from her. In that choice, I could see her pity and her tears, her quiet support. Her eventual resentment when, years from now, she was _someone_ and I was a college dropout, trying to keep my family out of the poorhouse and my mother out of the asylum.

Or I could let her go.

I looked into her eyes, trying to peer into the heart I'd known so much better than my own. But I couldn't see it anymore.

On so many levels, she was already gone.

Barely even able to hear my own voice, I whispered, "I think we've grown apart." My own dull laugh hit my ears, because there weren't truer words, for all that I was warping them.

And when I met her eyes, they were blank, her cheeks streaked with tears, and her mouth silent but open.

"I don't think I can be what you want," I breathed.

Bella remained frozen, but she was anything but silent. Wheezing slightly and drawing in a shuddering, sobbing breath, she protested, "No. Why? Edward, I – "

I simply stood there and shook my head, seeing all but the single possible future closing around me. And not seeing any other way.

She was before me then, a sudden thaw and her face, red and teary in front of mine. "I love you, Edward. I won't – You can't – "

"No, Bella," I breathed, letting her collapse into me and holding her to my chest with the full knowledge that it would be the very last time.

"Bella, I have to."

…

We shared a cold and lonely bed that night, her body still against mine even though neither of us could sleep. Instead we simply held each other, and in her stunned silence, I could already feel her resignation.

I could feel her giving up on me.

And it was then that I knew I had given up on myself.

In the morning, Mike was positively triumphant until Bella punched him in the jaw. He held a bag of ice to his face the entire way to the airport, and from that point on he stayed away from us both. I tried not to let his expression bother me as he watched our parting at the terminal; I knew we were never going to see each other again.

Staring at my Bella, I wondered if _we_ would ever see each other again either.

"You have to go," she whispered, her face scrunched up tightly in the faintest echo of my own. I was stretched so thin, one word would have broken me completely.

But I could tell that she had already given in. That she had decided to let me go.

"Goodbye, Bella," I whispered. Memorizing every touch, I pressed my lips to the skin I would always love, wondering in the back of my mind if she had ever really known me at all.

Walking away, I stifled a broken sob at the knowledge that now I would never know.

…

My eyes stare, unseeing, at the Chicago skyline.

Over the loudspeaker, a voice rings out, preparing us all to land.

But all I can feel is the crash.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

* * *

**A/N:** The conclusion will post on Thursday. Thanks for reading and reviewing.


	2. Part 2: Descent

Thanks to antiaol for making my words pretty and to bmango for keeping me sane. And again, huge thanks to Durameter for a great prompt and even greater generosity.

As always, Stephanie Meyer owns.

* * *

**Part 2: Descent**

It ends with a rattle, a spiral sinking slowly down as the city below seems to swing up to meet me. Inertia. The steady descent of the plane and the resistance of a body still intent on moving forward. Trying desperately to still be airborne.

With my tray table and my heart both locked and stowed, I am surrounded by nothing but the buzzing hum and the haze of anticipation. Gravity is a crushing force as everything gives in to it, the engines working only to keep the fall controlled.

But there is nothing controlled about it.

Not for me.

I stare out at the runway as it opens out onto a distant horizon, but the end of it, like the ends of so many things, lies well beyond my sight.

For a moment, we linger, hovering softly in a sky that is ringed in painful numb before the long, sharp drop.

Impact.

I bite my tongue as the wheels touch ground, my stomach roiling and the ache descending. It seems like nothing can be worse than the strange feeling of being simultaneously thrown forward and pulled back, the seat harsh against my spine.

But then the secondary effect of the brakes kicks in. A harsh jerk.

And then interminable, intolerable taxiing.

Mindless circling.

And I know, without a doubt, that it is over.

…

The first few weeks back at Northwestern are surreal. In some ways, it feels like I'm still floating, the world insubstantial beneath my feet. In others, it is as if the crash I kept imagining actually happened, my ribs cracked and my body shattered the way my heart has been.

My mind still floats on that loud, roaring hum of the engines as silence invades my days. There are yet more hushed conversations with Alice and with bill collectors, scattered pleas with professors, begging that they grant me just another week.

But the one voice that I want – the one I have depended upon to the exclusion of all others – remains mercilessly mute.

Piteous and lonely, I try to carry on with my days, but as night falls, it is clear that there is just no use. Bathed only in the glow of the computer screen, I write her email after email, not even stopping to read them before I hit delete. With a pen and paper, I write her letters, too, smudging the words with the side of my fist.

I break fire codes.

I break my heart.

Because every letter I write, I burn.

…

There are only a few weeks left in the semester when I finally walk the last few steps to the registrar's office and apply for a leave of absence. It's easy enough to document a family emergency.

It's harder to turn in the form.

I receive the approval after passing my last exam, and I hold it with shaking hands.

Knowing that _absence_ is something I am acquainted with so well.

Alice tells me over and over that she wants to come and help me move, but we can't afford the airfare and I won't let her take the week away from school.

And it's not as if our mother could drive her anyhow.

Alone, I pack my things away into boxes and ship the things I need. Everything else I try to sell or give away. The few people I have told all wish me well and offer promises of what we'll do when I return.

But when I close the door, it is with a heavy heart.

And a growing understanding that I will never see this place again.

…

Alice's hug is like an attack, the collision occurring before I can brace myself.

It's also the first human contact I've had in months.

For a long moment, there in the terminal, I hold her to me tightly, needing something to ground myself. I pull back long enough to try to say hello, but I am stopped short by the black rings around her eyes and by the sudden realization that it is her friend Rose standing beside her instead of my mother.

"Is it really that bad?" I am sucked immediately into the drama as Alice bites her lip and tries not to give in, but everything is clear.

We ride back to the house in silence and I thank Rose a half dozen times. She just smiles and tells us to let her know if there is anything she can do.

…

"Mom? Mom, please open the door."

Silence.

All I ever hear is silence.

I leave her dinner on the tray and walk away, thankful that Alice has learned how to cook at some point along the way. It's only after I make it back to the living room that I hear a door open and close, a ghost reaching out into the hall.

I know the empty tray will reappear in an hour or so.

I know that this can't go on. That I need help.

But I have no idea where to go.

…

I kick the curb in anger, sinking down and dropping my head into my hands. No one is hiring, and having been the golden boy of my high school two years ago isn't any help at all.

"Hey, you OK?"

I look up, squinting against the rare appearance of the sun to take in a face I know, if not terribly well.

Burying my gaze back down at the sidewalk, I nod. "I'm fine."

"Edward, right?" A guy about my sister's age sits down on the curb beside me and offers me his hand. "Emmett McCarty. Rose's boyfriend. You're Alice's brother, right?"

I gaze at the hand warily but finally accept it and confirm everything he's said. We sit in silence for a few minutes before he turns to look at me.

"Seriously, man. I'm afraid to say anything, but you looked like you were about to lose it there. I know you don't know me from Jesus, but if you need to talk or something..."

When he says the words 'lose it,' I feel as if a coil inside my abdomen is about to snap, a numb and broken laugh escaping my lungs.

"It's so far past lost …"

By and by, he coaxes everything from me, patting my back and eventually all but bodily lifting me up off the street.

"C'mon."

I follow but balk two blocks down the road when we arrive at the door to a bar.

"Emmett, I'm not … I can't." It doesn't occur to me until he has pushed me through the door that, as Rose's boyfriend, he's probably younger than I am, but I still tell him, "I'm not twenty-one."

"Doesn't matter," he insists, his hand coming down on the surface of the bar. "Pops?" he bellows, and a man in an apron turns around. "Good news, Pops. I found you your brand new bartender."

…

The first few weeks at the McCartys' bar are strange and torturous and good. Being busy and useful is a welcome relief, as is the paycheck that begins to soothe some of the more persistent voices demanding payment. It's also a distraction.

I welcome the chance not to think.

I have to sometimes, though, as familiar faces wander in and I am forced to speak of things I would much rather not remember. There are awkward encounters with people I knew in high school, and each time, they seem to carry a certain weight of failure to them. There are surprised glances and then recognition. Recollection.

Pity.

The first time someone asks about Bella, I drop the glass that I am filling and cut my hand on one of the shards. Subsequent reminders lead to less violent ends, but each time, it is as if I am reliving our separation all over again.

And I wish that the pain was only in my skin.

In general, her presence is thin in this town where she only spent a year. I avoid the places we went together.

But the only place I can't avoid is inside.

In my heart and in my room, she is always there. Staring at me. Crying. Resigned.

A full three months go by before I happen to run into her father. He and a few other men are having drinks at McCarty's when I get there for my shift, and with everything I am, I try to hide. Tying on my apron, I hear him mention something about Costa Rica, his whole countenance reflecting happiness and pride.

I slip into the back office before he can spot me.

Sliding my spine down the surface of the door, I crouch there for a long, long time.

I tell myself that I am happy for her.

Until I am.

…

"Mom?" My forehead is pressed against the wood of her door, my voice speaking to a ghost.

All I do is speak to ghosts these days.

I bang my head a dozen times and whisper, "Please."

And then I do what I do best.

I walk away.

…

"The usual?" I force a smile as I regard the man in front of me. He is middle aged. Disappointed.

And I wonder if he looks like me.

Summer has come and gone, the weather cold now, and I am still here. Alice is back in school, learning and laughing and coming home to a house that is all the more silent for the sparkle of her presence. Sometimes, evenings when I am not working, I simply watch her doing her homework or watching TV. I need it, that grounding to life and to reality.

I need it to remind me.

But it is as I am pulling the draft that I am drawn back into a different sort of a reality.

Laughter.

Life.

Instead of dropping the glass, I manage to place it on the bar, my shaking hands drawing up into fists as I make a record on the tab.

"Two Blue Moons and a …"

I lift my head and the entire bar floats away, my heart breaking all over again.

Bella looks good. I am aware enough to register this, and to recognize too all the little things. Her hair is shorter, no longer drifting down in the soft curls I always loved to run my fingers through. She's thinner now, too.

And there's something deeper about her eyes.

"What … Edward …" She sounds just as shocked as I am, and as I drink her in, I am suddenly glad for the bar's solidity, my body yearning to clear it and to pull her to me. For six long months now, I have known no touch and no comfort. No love and no release.

I have not heard her voice.

My eyes drift down, my feet shifting uncomfortably, and I am glad that she cannot see.

"Hello, Bella."

I still feel her gaze even though I cannot look at her. The silence between us grows with every moment, my attention focused on _not_ focusing, and I am ignoring the hands waving to the right of me, waiting for a bartender to serve up a drink.

"Edward." Her voice is a hushed rasp this time, and in it I can hear the same pain that pierced to the heart of me. "Edward, what the fuck are you doing here?"

There's something tearing, a broken shredding.

Fighting to keep my voice as numb and detached as I can, I settle both hands on the surface of the bar, still looking down. "Is there something I can get you?"

"You're _bartending_?"

"Two Blue Moons, right? And?"

"You asshole. You total fucking asshole."

When she whips around, it throws a drowning rush of her scent all around me, and I am glad that I am clutching at the bar, because otherwise I would be reeling. I look up just in time to catch her stalking away, the line of her legs so long in the sorts of heels she never used to wear.

She looks taller.

Better.

And hurt.

She gathers two other girls and throws on her coat. Her companions cast two hateful looks at me, but there is nothing I can do.

As the door slams closed behind them, I raise my hand. And again, I whisper, "Goodbye."

…

After seeing Bella, something in me that had already been dormant seems to finally give up the ghost. I wake up alone and cold, make breakfast for Alice and my mom. Sleep some more. Make dinner and go to the bar.

When my phone finally rings almost three weeks later, it wakes me from a dream of Bella's body hovering, tipsy and flushed on top of mine with sand in our skin and the sound of the ocean lapping deep within. The sound of the ringtone, harsh and artificial, is strange to my ears.

No one ever calls.

I fumble with the buttons with one arm draped over my face to guard it from the light, mumbling hello and praying that it isn't another issue with a bill.

So it's with relief and dread mixing together that I realize the voice is one I know. And that it is also one that I will always be paying for.

"Edward?"

"Bella."

Rolling to my side, I spend a luxurious moment simply listening to her breath.

Until, so quietly, she whispers, "Why didn't you tell me?"

I am mute and stricken, panicking at all my plans and all my deceptions unraveling with the air that is vacating my lungs.

"I don't know," I finally sigh, and sadly it is the truth. All the hours I have spent in numb contemplation of this very question have always ended at the same inescapable conclusion.

That I have no explanation.

"How did you find out?"

In hesitant sentences, she explains coming back to visit her father for her birthday and taking advantage of the opportunity to spend some time with the few people she met in high school besides me.

And to get incredibly drunk.

She doesn't tell me that it was in an effort to forget me. But I have spent too many nights myself with exactly the same ambition, and I can hear it in her voice.

Shakily, she hints at what her father was able to recount of my family's little tragedy.

I sigh hard, and then, with a similar level of uncertainty, I tell her what she already knows. About my father's betrayal and my mother's silence. Our sudden poverty and my sister's need.

"I guess..." I think as I am speaking, wanting to offer her something. "I guess I was embarrassed. Ashamed."

There's the sound of sniffling on the other end of the line.

So quietly, she breathes, "I thought it was me."

"No, Bella." There's moisture in the corners of my eyes, some so long-dead emotion now trying to claw its way out and making my throat feel set to ache and bleed. "It was always me. I had – I had responsibilities, and I didn't want to drag you down with me. I had to take care of my family."

"Oh, Edward," she sighs. "I know you did. But why couldn't you have let me take care of _you_?"

And I realize, sitting there alone, that I have nothing like the faintest idea.

…

"Mom? Mom, you have to come out."

I can almost feel the wood grain in my forehead now, the imprint of it burned right into the skin.

A touch settles on my shoulder, and it, too, is somehow burning.

"Edward, please."

"No, Alice." I shove her away and go back to thudding my brow against the door.

"Yes." She is insistent as she tries to pull me away, but it's no use. I won't budge. I can't.

Whipping around, I take in my sister's frightened eyes, and as I do, I feel a pang in the deepest parts of me. Remembering that I came home to save her, I realize that I've done exactly what everyone else has.

I've abandoned her.

But I wasn't the first.

Shoving her back just far enough that I can breathe, I sit with my spine to my mother's door and close my eyes, my elbows resting on my knees as I curl up compulsively.

"She can't keep doing this," I say, despair giving slowly to anger. "Doesn't she know what it's doing to her? What it's doing to us all? She can't just stay locked up there forever feeling sorry for herself."

When I look up, I see that Alice hasn't flinched. If anything, she has only moved closer.

A minute later, I am in her arms, her cheek damp against my own and her voice so warm.

"Edward. Neither can you."

…

A week to the day after the first call, my phone rings again. We begin tentatively, but it's natural to speak to each other this way, and before long I have curled myself around the illuminated plastic, laughing in a way that I haven't in so, so long.

Bella's voice quiets across the wire, and collectively we sigh.

"How are you really?" I ask, finally giving voice to the question I have been holding onto since the very moment I gave her away.

"I'm … I'm fine. Now."

Her exhale is another low rush of pain, but in it's own way it's a good pain.

Continuing, she says, "It destroyed me, though. You walking away. I'd been feeling you drifting off for so long, but I was always hoping..."

"Hoping?"

"Hoping we'd find a way to work through it somehow. That I had a chance."

"Bella, I told you, it wasn't – "

"I know. I know. But at the time, I …"

I close my eyes, the words I have been imagining saying to her every night wanting desperately to be set free. Meaningfully, I begin, "I still l– "

"Don't say it, Edward. If you ever cared about me at all. Please."

The words hang unspoken on the air, until finally I agree in a long, lonely rush of air and regret. "OK."

"OK."

After a long moment, I breathe again. "But that was all then, Bella. How are you _now_?"

"Now? … Now I'm … I'm good. School's good. Life's good. Costa Rica was … amazing."

On the other end of the line, I smile, asking questions and relearning the girl I was too foolish to let know me.

…

"So … I think I'm going to go stay with my dad for Christmas this year."

I nearly drop the phone, choking slightly as I stall. "Really?"

"Yeah. My mom's going on some cruise or something, so I don't exactly have a lot of options."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Clearing my throat, I manage, "Do you want many?"

"Many what?"

"Options."

She considers for a moment before answering quietly, "No. Not really."

My voice is lower than I expect as I murmur, "When you're here, do you think … Do you think maybe I could see you? I mean, if you want. You could stop by the bar or … "

She rescues me from myself as I begin to trail off, devolving into the same self doubt from which my silence was born so many months ago.

"I think I'd like that, Edward."

"You would?"

"Yeah. I would."

…

Alice is sitting in front of our mother's door when I get off the phone. The promise of seeing Bella again reminds me of everything I gave away.

And why.

It reminds me that I chose my family over my life.

And that half of my family refuses to even look at me.

I feel my temper rising as Alice speaks in quiet, consoling murmurs , and I find myself saying, "Mom?" myself, but in a totally different tone.

A tone I've never really used before.

"Mom?"

The resounding silence is finally too much, and in the flash of time it takes for my hand to wrap itself around the handle of the doorknob, I think of everything I've lost. Everything I still want and everything I need.

I speak her name just one more time before I am slamming my body against the door, my sister recoiling. There's a snap and the sound of popping, and then the whole thing gives way.

Grasping at the doorframe, I manage to keep myself from falling over in my surprise, my eyes darting all around the room before landing on a bed covered in tissues.

Before taking in my mother's gaunt and terrified face.

And when I collapse onto that bed, pulling her into my arms, I am not sure if it is to console her lonely crying.

Or mine.

…

Alice helps me get our mother cleaned up, but the first few steps outside of her room are painful. And loud. Mom screams about how she is waiting for our father, and eventually, I am forced to kneel in front of her and remind that it will be years before he will be home.

When Mom lashes out, I pull Alice away, and we retreat to the safety of the hallway where, once, we were exiled, and where now we seek some sort of refuge.

A single nod between the two of us resolves things.

And when the doctors take my mother away, it is to the sound of her telling me, over and over, that she hates me.

…

It is still just Alice and me in the house when Christmas comes around. On Christmas day we go to visit Mom and Dad each in turn, and both the hospital and the prison feel like jails.

Across a table, I sit in silence, staring at my mother and screaming in my head that she should have protected us both from this all.

Across another table, through plexiglass, I see my father for the first time since his fall.

And when he whispers his apologies, over and over and over again, I wish that he was dead.

…

The day after Christmas, I go to work to find three presents from the McCartys.

A bonus check big enough to cover my books for the next year.

The night off.

And seat at the bar next to a brown-haired beauty.

"Edward!"

Bella is off her seat and right in front of me in the time it takes to cross the room, and it is all I can do to keep my itching, empty hands held tightly at my side. She stops just short of putting her arms around me, too, the sharp if short-lived twisting of her features indicating that she is equally uncertain about how to proceed.

Resisting, for the moment, the temptation to take her into my arms, I cannot help but lift an unsteady hand to her face, brushing away a soft fall of hair as I tell her how well she looks, and how glad I am to see her.

She smiles sadly. "It's good to see you, too."

...

"I can't … believe … " Bella trails off, each of us doubled over with laughter to the point where neither of us can breathe. She is falling off her bar stool, her hand burning as it rests so casually on my knee, and she is so close. So warm.

My elbow comes down on the surface of the bar as I twist to look at her, my eyes watery and blurred, but for once the tears are born of laughter and not of emptiness or pain.

"Can't … can't believe you took Mike seriously!"

Our shoulders bump as I give in just a little more, roaring and crying now, and uncertain why something that hurt so much can seem so funny now.

"God, he was so ridiculous, too," I all but howl. "All, Cullen this and … and all 'Bella, she's going places'."

She shakes her head and wipes her eyes, slamming back the rest of her beer before setting it back down on the bar unsteadily, nearly tipping it as she collapses into me with giggles that rock her entire body. "Not with him," she insists. "God, what an idiot."

"Yeah, I was," I respond, not thinking.

And suddenly the moment is serious, her face so close to mine.

And she's so warm.

Her gaze flickers from my lips back up to my eyes, and then she is righting herself, however unsteadily. "I meant him."

I catch myself before I can lean back in, swaying a little as I take another drink, trying to think of just how many times the glass has been refilled and failing. The world swims when I shake my head, and then there is just brown and eyes and soft, pale skin.

"I know," I murmur, feeling her breath and staring intently at her mouth.

"Do you?"

I suddenly can't remember what we are talking about, my stomach flipping and my hands gripping at a bar stool that is too insubstantial to support me now.

"Do I what?"

Falling slightly forward, I catch myself just in time.

But also too late.

"Do you know I wouldn't have gone anywhere without you?"

I know what she means, but I hear it all wrong. The surface of the bar is cool beneath my brow, and I'm too warm.

Too warm.

I can't breathe.

"I'm not going anywhere," I mumble.

"Sure you are." I can almost taste her breath now, it's so near, her hand on my back, and it's a gesture I know so well.

I shake my head. "'m stuck."

Turning my head and opening my eyes, her face is right there again.

"Edward, I would have gone anywhere with you."

…

Bella's hand leaves a print against the surface of the glass on the jukebox as she tries to steady herself, and I end up catching her. I've slowed down enough to know I've had too many, and in the intervening time she has thoroughly joined me in the land of the drunk.

And the handsy.

She falls into my chest and points lazily at another song.

"Remember that one?" she slurs, and I lean my cheek against the top of her head.

"Of course."

My arm wraps around her as I let my mind play over the first time we ever danced, images of her in a dress and of her glassy eyes staring up at me.

"It was the first time you kissed me," she whispers.

I nod and gulp, using all my restraint to keep from doing it again. To keep from kissing her endlessly.

Longing to lose myself in memory and in her body.

To lose myself _completely_.

Barely breathing, I rasp out the words, "I know," before pressing my lips so softly to the skin beside her hair.

"I never thought you would."

"I never thought you wanted me to."

We stare forward at the faded album cover as her nail scratches wistfully at the glass.

Slowly, she says, "I did." Her voice is even quieter when she breathes, "Sometimes, I still do."

I close my eyes and press my nose against her hair. "Me, too."

"You broke my heart, Edward."

Again, I breathe, "Me, too."

…

"I can walk!" she squeals, but she is lying, swaying erratically with every step, and there is something around the edges of her face that is positively green.

My need to keep her upright is only part of the reason I pull her more tightly against my side. "You're drunk, Bella."

"Whatever." She laughs. "So are you."

"Touche."

An uneven patch of sidewalk quiets us for a few minutes as we each try not to fall down. Ahead I can see her father's door, and it makes the already-sickly feeling in my stomach bloom.

I'm out of time.

She chooses just that moment to plummet forward, her feet falling out from underneath her and I am reaching wildly, intent on catching her. As my arms close around her waist, I let out a rush of air. Her body is so close to mine, our eyes searching, noses almost touching, and I can feel her breath. Her warmth.

The need she brings to life in my aching body.

"Bella..."

"Edward."

Time freezes, and I can feel the heaviness of a moment I have been both dreaming of and dreading. One part of my mind tells me that she knows everything and that she loves me all the same.

The other reminds me that _nothing_ is the same.

Her hand is burning against my heart, slipping, and then fingers curl like claws at the collar my shirt. Pulled ever closer, I let my forehead rest against hers, our lips so close that they brush as we breathe.

She closes her eyes.

And then, instead of pulling, that hand is gently but firmly pushing me away.

"You love me," Bella breathes.

"You told me not to say –"

"But you do."

I stare into her eyes. "I do."

It's not an accusation when she says, shakily, "But you're not ready."

I want to be.

God, how I want to be.

Her lips are warm against my cheek as she whispers, "When you are, you know where to find me."

And then it's my turn to watch her walk away.

…

"I'm sorry."

The words almost blind me as I check over Alice's backpack, making sure that she has everything.

My mother has been home from the hospital for a month and the warmth of spring is creeping over the cold and lonely house. It's also creeping over me.

When I turn up to look at her, I meet watery eyes that remind me of my own, slender hands twisting at knuckles.

"I'm so sorry, Edward." They are the words I have been longing for, coming from the mouth I never dreamed would speak them, and for a minute it seems like all I can do is stare. Mom keeps talking as I gape at her, her voice growing shakier and yet more convincing with every word. "For not being here. For making you shoulder all of this on your own. For setting you back a year."

I have to look down, unable to face the full tally of everything I set aside.

"I know – I know what happened with you and Bella probably has to do with all of this, too. And I'm just … I know I can never make it up to you. But starting now, I want you to know … I'm trying."

I nod and rub a hand across my eyes, standing without looking at my mother as Alice comes into view. My sister's gaze is penetrating, and in it I can read her question. Evading it, I pat her shoulder and pull her in for a quick, tight hug, watching my mother all the while as I slip Alice's backpack over her shoulder.

"Have a good day," I mumble.

Alice raises and eyebrow. "You, too."

As the door swings closed, the house echoes, and it is just my mother and me. And it occurs to me, gazing at her as levelly as I can, that I never thought I would ever see her so frightened.

Much less, that I would see her frightened of me.

With wet eyes, Mom turns away, looking as if she is going to retreat.

"Thank you," I say quietly. She stops, twisting to look back over her shoulder at me. "For the apology," I clarify. And then I shrug. "I'd do anything for my family."

"I know," Mom replies weakly. "But that doesn't mean you ever should have had to."

…

Bella and I talk almost every day, and except for our strained silence at the end of every conversation, it is almost as if we are together again. She tells me with equal parts excitement and resignation that she'll be staying in Hanover for the summer, working with a professor to analyze the findings from the last year's dig, and with no real resentment, I tell her I am happy for her.

As spring approaches, the anniversary of our separation looms large, too, and something in our conversations shifts. Our words grow more open, our separate hurts more real.

On the day itself, we do not mention it specifically, but for the very first time she asks me, "Was there ever anyone else?"

I almost laugh, just barely stopping myself before I do. "No. Never. Not in all my life, Bella, has there ever been anyone but you."

She hums. "I – I tried. I dated a couple of guys, mostly as revenge because I thought you had to be cheating on me. But I never … I didn't …"

"It's OK," I murmur, even though it isn't. Not really. The low ache grows fiery and hot, and I put my hand on my chest to try to contain it.

"No. No, it's not. Because I did try."

"I – "

I don't want to hear. I don't want to know.

She speaks over me anyway. "But I couldn't. Not when I was still in love with you."

Even though I said I didn't want to know, I ask anyway. "And now...?"

After a long exhale, Bella sighs, "And even now, nothing about that has changed."

…

Alice's school has been out for a week when my birthday rolls around, and I wake long after I would have if I had set an alarm.

Downstairs, everything is quiet, as if it has been waiting for me – a fact that is proven moments later when I show my face. Both Alice and my mother are already dressed, and I am quickly pushed down into a chair at the head of the table, the two of them erupting into a whirl of activity. It's seems strange that it should be so natural. So warm here, after so much cold.

We laugh and talk like a normal family as we eat a breakfast my mother prepared, and I begin to grow suspicious when the two of them begin trading furtive looks.

Finally, Alice gives, and I am almost relieved when she all but pops in front of me, placing two envelopes on the table with a smile she cannot contain.

After so much careful scrimping, I give them disapproving looks, but my hands move automatically toward the envelopes anyway.

"Go on," Mom urges, and I waver between the two, uncertain of which to choose. Watching Alice's eyes, I finally opt for the larger, tearing into it with trepidation and excitement.

But nothing could have prepared me for what I see.

"Mom, these are … these are loan papers."

She nods, tears forming in her eyes. "Your father and I filed for financial aid for you. Between a grant and loan, you're all set to go back next year."

"But – "

"No buts, Edward. Did you really think you were going to give everything away to take care of us forever?"

My hands shake. "Kind of."

"Oh, baby," Mom murmurs, shifting in her seat until she can put her arms around me. "Never. I won't let you. Never."

"But how – "

"I start _my_ new job tomorrow, and your sister's picking up extra hours for the summer, too. We'll be fine, Edward."

"But Alice. Next year, when she graduates – "

"We'll apply for financial aid for her, too. And somehow, it will all be OK."

I shake my head and hug her back, looking at Alice, who is misty-eyed herself as she pushes the other envelope across the table.

"Go on," Alice urges.

Mom lets me go long enough to get my hands through the seal.

I stare at the paper until I can hardly see anymore.

…

It begins with a high whine. An engine.

It begins with air.

And one more time, I am flying.

…

"Hold on! Just a minute!"

The voice is muffled through the door, and I smile as I hear something fall somewhere within. There is too much excitement in my limbs, an itching in my hands and running up and down my spine. As footfalls approach, I let my nerves take over, my heart racing and a smile flirting precipitously with a frown as I try to imagine every possible outcome.

There's not much time to contemplate them all. Before I can even lift my bag up off the ground, a lock is turning, a door opening.

And my future is reopening, too.

As the wood gives way, I let my eyes feast on soft curves and warm brown hair, faint smudges of flour across a shirt, and then the eyes I have been waiting for. They widen as they take me in as well, a fist curling more tightly around a dish towel as her other hand releases the doorknob to run fingers self-consciously through her hair. My heart swells as she blushes and smiles and pulls a bit of dough out of the mess of gentle waves.

She's a mess.

And she's so, so beautiful.

My bag falls from my hands as I step up to the threshold, hovering there before finally crossing through and doing exactly what I have been longing to since the night we stumbled drunkenly down a sidewalk toward her house.

Since the night, more than a year ago, when I lied to her and broke our hearts.

With an intensity that frightens even me, I place one hand on each side of her face, reveling at the warmth that flows up through my palms and leaning down to rest my forehead against her brow.

"I love you," I breathe. "I love you and I'm a mess and I'm ready."

Bella stands there, absolutely still, and my chest feels like it is cracking in the wake of her silence, my whole being bent to the work of waiting. As I do, I search her eyes and face and stare at the soft line of her lips as they part to breathe. And I know that they have the power to either complete or ruin me.

All the hopes I hadn't dared to let bloom begin to choke me as I whisper, "Are you, Bella? Are you ready? Will you still have me?"

Tears form in her eyes as she shakes her head, everything turning to ash inside my lungs. "Never again," she finally says, her voice rough and harsh, but instead of pulling away, she is clinging to me, her hands tugging at the back of my shirt as she pulls me in. "You will never, ever leave me out of the loop again. Do you understand me?"

I choke on my own breath and nod. "Never," I murmur.

Her faces cracks open in a wide and watery smile. "OK."

"OK?"

She nods. "OK."

One hand drifts up to cup my jaw, and then I am falling into her lips, kissing wet and hard, sloppy, needy motions of mouth over mouth.

"I love you, too," she manages between kisses. "Always have. Always will."

"Me, too. Always."

I am just self-possessed enough to pull my bag inside before I kick the door closed, and then I am wrapping myself around Bella's body again. We scarcely manage to come up for air as our mouths reacquaint themselves and as our hands explore and feel. She is the first to cross the line when she steps in close enough to me to press her abdomen against my obvious arousal, aching in the wake of a year of solitude.

"Fuck, Bella," I murmur, instinctively pressing against her and moaning slightly at how good it feels to be so close. "We … we should talk – "

"Later." She silences me with a kiss and leads me farther back into her apartment. I try to half pay attention to our surroundings, taking in the new walls that are so much better of a fit for her than the dorm ever was, and which she described in detail over the phone when she was moving. But it's impossible to focus on anything but the heaven of her mouth and hands as they move over me.

I do manage to notice when we arrive in her bedroom. Fluidly, she backs herself up onto the bed, pulling at me until I lie on top of her, nestled between her legs and with my mouth attached desperately to her neck.

"I missed you," she breathes as she tears at my clothes and I at hers. There is a lingering worry at the back of my mind, telling me we should be slow and deliberate instead of rushed and urgent. From beneath me, Bella places a hand against my cheek and whispers, "I'll take care of you."

I groan and shed the rest of our clothes, my body sliding along hers and pressing against her hip. "I can't," I mumble. "I want."

"I'm yours."

Kissing her deeply, I finally let her calm me and pull me closer, positioning me until I slide home inside her body, nearly staggered by the pleasure that threatens to consume everything. Our eyes lock as we move against each other, both naked. Both revealed. As I let a year's worth of wanting begin to crescendo, I promise her over and over that I will never lie to her or shut her out again.

And as she comes, she whispers, "I believe you."

…

For the longest time, we lie there together, naked and entwined, listening to the rhythm of each others' hearts. Instead of grasping at her, I run steady fingers over all the subtle lines of her face and body, our eyes drifting over skin.

By turns, she begins to ask me all sorts of questions, beginning with how I came to be there at her doorstep on a random Saturday afternoon. I tell her in quiet tones about the gifts I received. The loan papers my parents signed. The tickets.

With wet eyes, I describe my mother's recovery. And then I show Bella the piece of paper that was wrapped around the tickets, written in my father's hand. A note telling me he is proud of me. And thanking me for doing what he could not.

She sits up then, gathering her legs in close to her chest.

Touching my face, she says quietly, "I am, too, you know. Proud of you." She shakes her head. "Not of how you treated me. But in general. What you did for your family was … "

"Duty, Bella. It was my duty to them." I bring myself to a sit before her, our knees touching and the sheets draped loosely around our waists. "Being with you was a dream. And I didn't know how to do it with a reality that was … crumbling."

"It's not a dream, baby. This is real. You and me. It's as real as anything."

"I know," I breathe, meeting her gaze. "Reality though … it isn't easy."

"No. No, it's not."

"And I'm not going to lie, or try to shield you. I'm … I really am a mess. And I'll still be in Chicago for another two years at best. I won't be able to come here often or take care of you the way I want or … "

"Hey." Bella catches my face between her hands, just as I am beginning to bury my gaze in my lap. "It's OK, Edward. Didn't I tell you that you need to let me take care of you?"

"Yes, but – "

"No buts. Let me, Edward. Let me ground you."

As she leans forward to kiss me, I find myself smiling, feeling free at last. Unfettered. Soaring.

And it's frightening to be so free, with my dreams and desires taking flight. Only, as I pull her more deeply into my arms, it feels safe to let the ground go.

Suddenly, it doesn't matter if I fall.

Suddenly, I have somewhere to land.

**... FIN ...**


End file.
